Announcements

David Porter Communications
with the Human Touch

The Box

where experience counts

Human Communication is the Name of my Game

A service to business and individuals in need of confidence building, trouble shooting, problem solving, public speaking, report/letter writing, quality written web content, editing, event enabling, voice-overs, third way and lateral thinking.

I work with others rich in life’s experiences:

We think outside the box.
But we don’t neglect what’s already inside the box, too

Whatever your problem, we can help
We can do it for you, or work with you
We can talk to people for or with you
We facilitate
We teach you or your staff the know-how from writing English to speaking it
We organise, arrange, plan, question
We come up with blue sky thinking
We brain storm for or with you.

What’s in the Box?

I lead a team of older, wiser, widely experienced people from business, education, public sector, arts and sports worlds running this unique service to help you and keep our brains lively.

Research from the University of Texas (Aug 2011) found that older people are more adept at strategic decisions which take the future into account than younger people. Decision-making ability doesn’t decline with age (60-80). On the contrary, the more experience of life and challenges, the better you are at them!

After years of work in many and varied fields, we have learned skills in solving problems, decision making, team building, motivation, performing, writing in all genres, approaching people/situations and brick-wall tackling.

Sometimes the solution to a problem lies in your mind already, it just needs bringing out.

An idea needs a nudge, people need to be brought together, writing needs to be done, presentations made, documents edited, events set in motion, publicity planned in local media and on line, people briefed and records correctly kept.
Your staff might need specialised training that is outside your field, including spelling, punctuation and grammar or spoken presentation..
You might need a starting point for a vision, a project or a dream.

Lift the Box lid and see the light!

David Porter, former Member of Parliament, English and drama teacher and head of Performing Arts in secondary education, political organiser, experience in public speaking/performing, writing on line and off, editing, trouble shooting and examining/assessing.

email: david@davidporter.co.uk

New: My old school, Lowestoft Grammar School, now Ormiston Denes Academy have an alumni page where I wrote about my school memories. My autobiography is planned for publication in 2015.

Headline

Scoffers Will Comeis the second collection of my short stories. They draw on my experiences as drama student, children’s theatre performer, drama teacher, examiner/assessor, political organiser and Member of Parliament. There are also ideas from elsewhere.

As I self-published my first anthology, Wild Beasts and Plague (2018) I had more stories than I could accommodate in one volume. So, Scoffers Will Come is the vehicle for new stories and re-dreamed tales from the 1960s to the present day and beyond.

These tales play through both strange and normal times. They sit in absurdity and surrealism, dark humour, tragedy, revenge, suffering, thwarted personal plans and growing old. All the lot of human life.

Through life’s quirks and character idiosyncrasies they reflect the voice I’ve developed over a lifetime of writing, public speaking, performing and presenting.

Besides the title story, Scoffers Will Come, the titles include Nobody Will Dance With Me, Pleasing the Crowd and Approximately Charlie and George. We have A Theatre Empties, Cages for Laughter and Stop That Laughing. There is also Breath-Play, Gone Away for Good, The Blue-Arsed Fly, A Chorus of Hallelujahs and Howling Darkness. The Alcatraz Stretch, Cedric’s Left the Building and Time to Stand and Scream complete the selection.

The volume is published under my ‘Walk in My Shoes Publications’. It’s the imprint of a man suffering the deformed feet of the condition, Charcot Marie Tooth disease. Having it all my life has, naturally, defined me, but hasn’t stopped me leading a full, varied and challenging life.

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You may have seen the TV drama (New Tricks) about retired senior police officers helping current squads unearth cold cases, old evidence from the perspective of their long years of experience? You … Read more »

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Wild beasts and plague were two of the four dreadful judgements warned about by the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel in the Bible – sword and famine and wild beasts and plague.
It inspired the title of one of eighteen short stories in my collection, Wild Beasts and Plague, self published under my imprint Walk in My Shoes Publications and available on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle versions.
Wild Beasts and Plague is an eclectic mix of short stories set in the 1960s to the present day and beyond exploring issues around life’s recurring and challenging themes including revenge, jealousy, growing old, inadequacy, thwarted ambition, memories, death and the dark side of life.
Herein lies madness, humour and absurdity, the past, present … Read entire article »

My School Productions from Devised Drama, is a teaching resource for the drama teacher looking to experiment with developing devised dramas into full school productions as a change from the usual scripted suspects schools so often use. It’s now available.
Based on real experiences of devising a range of ideas developed into public shows at both Benjamin Britten High School, Lowestoft and Kirkley High School, Lowestoft it provides over 200 starting points, development grids, character ideas, themed approaches, drama teacher ‘block buster’ suggestions and research references galore.
School Productions from Devised Drama is published on TES Resources with a free detailed Introduction followed by 13 separate sections:
1. Getting started, getting excited
2. Using (local) history
3. Using the 1960s
4. Using teenage … Read entire article »

A Rebel’s Journey
My Life and Times
My autobiography – A Rebel’s Journey – has been published under the imprint ‘Walk in My Shoes Publications’, as was my novel Old Men’s Dreams.
The story of my life has been a while coming, but it’s I something I wanted to do and set my heart, mind and time on it spread over a four year period. I’ve promised to make a donation from sales of this book to Charcot Marie Tooth UK, the organisation looking out for sufferers of CMT.
I am one such and my deformed feet did not define or stop me as I did much in my life, but they were a problem that had to be managed. They still are.
My … Read entire article »

Drama resources! Drama resources! Drama resources! It’s the common cry of under-pressure drama teachers in all kinds of settings.
Through this website and my published articles about drama teaching and often when I visit schools as part of my exam work, I find I am asked frequently about easily available and accessible drama resources.
I have no problem sharing the articles I have published on here with ideas that have been tried and tested.
Of course, lack of finance is very much part of the issue. I do think many of the books written to support teachers and students directly with ideas in general and exam oriented material in particular are good value as they should last years.
But … Read entire article »

Musicals! – The Sound of Musicals, review published in the Eastern Daily Press, online edition on Saturday 30 September 2017.
Musicals are worth celebrating anytime, but the Lowestoft Players have a special reason to pull out the musical theatre stops.
Founded in 1967, the award winning Lowestoft Players open their golden jubilee year with ‘The Sound of Musicals’ at their very own Bethel Theatre.
With over 50 musicals to their credit, not to mention pantomimes, plays and revues, this talented, continuously inventive all-age cast present a sparkling show offering a taste from most of those musicals!
More than a concert of excerpts, this has dancing, moving, magnificent singing, comedy, emotion and a gripping sense of showbiz and spectacle – … Read entire article »

Hairspray review of Lowestoft players’ show at the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft in June 2017, published in the Lowestoft Journal, 9 June 2017 and also the Eastern Daily Press.
Hairspray is one of those unlikely stories that became a big hit on film and stage. And big is the word.
Lowestoft Players take the tale of oversize love triumphant in the cut-and-thrust of showbiz TV in early 1960s racially segregated USA and give it their special high energy, fun-packed treatment.
Pace never slackens. Songs hit one after the other, with familiar Good Morning Baltimore, Nicest Kids in Town, I Can Hear the Bells and the standout I Know Where I’ve Been keeping everybody’s feet tapping.
Cool choreography, smart direction, verbal and … Read entire article »

See How They Run is a farce by Open Space Theatre company, performed at the Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft, April 2017.
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 April 2017
To stage a classic, traditional, fast-paced, highly energetic romping farce well is a challenge for any theatre company.
Open Space proved themselves more than up to it when they brought ‘See How They Run’ to Lowestoft’s Seagull Theatre on their latest regional tour.
The company has created a richly varied back catalogue of productions from Chekhov and Ibsen to Alan Bennett and now this old Philip King favourite from wartime Britain, gently mocking and reminding us of changed times and long-gone social mores.
Director David Green has a knack for … Read entire article »

Bugsy Malone
at East Point Academy, Lowestoft
Bugsy Malone is one of those marvellous creations – a piece of fun-filled, light-hearted, joyful nonsense that’s stood the test of time (it was first around as a film in 1976) and is accessible to all ages.
In the hands of the production team led by the indomitable Jo Gilbert, East Point Academy did a wonderful job in bringing sheer entertainment to large and enthusiastic audiences.
Set very loosely in the speakeasies and alleys of Prohibition-era Chicago, it revolves round rival gangsters, hoodlums, undesirables, loose women, death dealt by cream pies and splurge guns and a couple of incompetent cops.
It packs some favourite songs, such as ‘My Name Is Tallulah’, ‘Tomorrow’, … Read entire article »

A Christmas Spectacular
by the Lowestoft Players, in their Bethel Theatre
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 5th December 2016 and The Lowestoft Journal, 9 December 2016
Christmas, coming as it does ever earlier and ever more commercial, is likely to bring out the inner Scrooge in many of us. The Lowestoft Players’ annual spectacular seasonal variety show is the perfect antidote to that.
There is something about the warm atmosphere of the Players’ Bethel theatre, lights, effects, magnificent costumes, superb singing, dancing and comedy routines – some new, some old and some new takes on old favourites – that is heart-warming and feel-good.
Directed by Lauren Nevill and Polly Woodward, with choreography by Emily Fox and musical … Read entire article »